Today was our Introduction to Creating an Artisan Business.

I'm not sure that anyone really knew what to expect from today, but I think we were all pleasantly surprised.  The day started off with quick introductions from everyone, along with a brief outline of any business experience we had (in my case very little!) & what we thought the course might be about.

There are a few people on the course with previous experience of running a small business, so there should be plenty of knowledge to share around the group =)

We were split into groups of 4 or 5, & given a series of words & asked to come up with three definitions of each.  The words were those associated with business; things like 'finance', 'surplus', 'innovation' & 'entraupernership'.  It was quite an interesting exercise, it's surprising how hard it is to pin down definitions for words you use in everyday situations without really thinking about the meaning.

After lunch we undertook a personality test, the results of which we don't have yet, but the idea is to give us a better idea of the people we are; if we're extroverted or introverted etc.  We were then split into two groups, those who considered themselves extrovert & those who consider themselves introvert, & we were asked to list the pros's & con's of both.  We then presented the results to each other, to much laughter!

The students were split into two groups again & given an article to read through, which included 9 Do's & Don't's to consider when starting up a business, & asked to list them in order of importance.  Our team worked through it individually first, then compared our results to come up with a group list =)

It was quite an enjoyable day really, & I'm looking forward to getting more stuck into the theory side of things.  There's quite a lot to think about when considering starting a business, more than you first realise, so I think it will be really useful =)

We get to put together a business plan as part of the course, & then present it, Dragons Den style, at the end of the course, which should be really quite interesting!

Tomorrow we have our Introduction to Butchery, which I am quite looking forward to.  I've never really had any experience in Butchery so it should be fun =)  Hopefully there will be plenty of pictures again, but I'm going home tomorrow night so I might not get a post up until the weekend, but I'll do my best!